Christopher Low, AsiaClickz
"The benefits were beyond my expectations. There were a lot of good contacts from all industries. The people that came to our booth were decision makers."
Dhiman Mukherji, Regional Head Ad Sales, AOL Online India
"This time there were a lot of ad networks participating. Publishers are finding it more cost effective to work through ad networks. One learning that I can clearly see here is that the ad network business is gaining ground.
"Second, the whole media scene is becoming very fragmented in that the display advertising scene is not so much of a cash cow any more as it used to be. Advertising is becoming more performance driven now. Search is the most important part of any performance driven campaign, but through ad networks, a lot of people are now beginning to monetise their pages, which is a healthy trend. The big publishers need to watch out because the smaller publishers are getting together to make best use of these networks.
I enjoyed Steven Noble's keynote address and Scott Goodstein's account of the Obama campaign. Very interesting stuff. Most of the things are actually common sense but it’s the application that matters. I think we all know what the Obama campaign was about, but what really went behind the scenes was what I wanted to know, and I got to know a little bit of that.
Elvin Tan, Country Manager for Singapore, Pixel Media Asia
"There's a lot of buzz about mobile marketing and everyone is watching with a very keen interest to where it's moving. For me the most useful part was the session on engaging the youth, just hearing real people speak about their lives and how they use not just social networks but the internet and their digital lifestyle."
Kelly Harvey, CEO, TSN Labs
"The most important thing was the contacts I made. Scott Goodstein from the Obama campaign was outstanding and I also enjoyed the panel on publishers. The main thing that I've learnt is that the market here isn’t up to speed with what we’re doing in the US. What that tells me is there's a great opportunity here if we can take some of the trends in both products and marketing that we see in the US and Europe and find ways to implement them here, where the market size is so much bigger."
Ken Dean Lawadinata, CEO, Kaskus
"I learnt about advertising: CPM, CPC, CPA, and how companies would like their brands to be advertised and what kind of methods. I'd give the event 8/10. The keynote panel on publishers was the best, it was a pleasure to hear from all of them. They pointed out a pretty good point which is CPC and CPA might not be the fair method for media because it's unfair to them.
Kurt Chan, General Manager, MG Interactive
"The workshops on search marketing were useful for me. I'm from Hong Kong, and mostly focused on the greater China market. This is the first time I'm attending ad:tech Singapore. I've learnt something about online marketing in SEA. I'll be back again next year.
Low Hang Wei, Business Development Manager, myWobile
"The event was quite international because of the visitors that came to the exhibition, and there is potential for collaboration abroad, not just in Singapore. For a start-up that’s looking to expand overseas, it is very beneficial. We foresee that the contacts that we got will be very useful for the future and we'll definitely be looking forward to next year's ad:tech. I would like to see more local visitors coming to the exhibition as well. Though the traffic was not a lot, the quality of visitors was high.
Matthew Ward, Managing Director for Singapore, Admax Network
"It's been a good opportunity for us to connect with people in the industry, to get out there and showcase what we can do. Traffic is slightly quieter than last year, but the layout this year is better because last year you had to walk round to the ballroom on the other side. This tie time the ballroom is right next door, it's much easier to get people to flow through into the exhibitors' hall. I think we'll be back next year. We done it two years in a row, and it's worth having a presence.
"I think a lot of people would be expecting to learn something that they can take away and apply to their jobs tomorrow, and I think there's maybe a little bit of lack of that in some of the content. Maybe the panels were too much of a high level discussion, and some people are looking for much more practical takeaways."
Naveen Marasinghe, Online Marketing Executive, eMarketingEye
"We are a search engine marketing company, but ad:tech incorporates a lot of other things. The people that we met were from different industries, which was quite helpful for us in reaching a wider audience."
Steve Ng, Vice President for Marketing, Singapore Post
"What I found interesting was really the session on the Obama campaign. That’s really a great topic to talk about. How the entire campaign was able to raise funds. The takeaway there is clearly how Obama cleverly managed traditional and online media to achieve his objectives.
"But whether or not online media will be able to overtake offline, I don’t think so. If you look at Singapore, you probably get the younger generation going online a lot more. Particularly here where the population is aging, that group of consumers still embraces offline media. While I think online is the way to go eventually, maybe at this time, both online and offline have a critical role to play.
"This is my first time at ad:tech. I think it's interesting, I think there were good speakers that are very knowledgeable about the topics they cover. What would be good if topics would touch on how you can embrace social media, what are the examples, what are the factors we should be looking at?"
Marcel Lee Pereira is editor of iMedia Connection Asia.
